The Separation of Church and State is Good For Everyone

The founding fathers "were well aware of the fact that God had given them and all of mankind very specific litmus tests in the Bible that they needed to apply to all government officials before putting them into positions of power." This is a quote from a website (creationists.org) that uses David Barton's revisionist history to argue against the separation of church and state. Barton, as I hope you are already aware, is a favorite among the religious right as is evidenced by this website using his research to dispel the "myth" of separation of church and state. As I previously posted, potential presidential contender Mike Huckabee argues that Americans should be forced to listen to David Barton (at gun-point no less) and claims he is the greatest historian in the United States today. I beg to differ.

The people over at creationists.org seem to not understand the same thing that Barton and other religious right proponents don't understand. The Constitution of the United States expressly forbids religious tests for public office in Article VI: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." While they can rant on and on about the personal religious beliefs of some of the founding fathers, none of that changes what is written in Article VI. If the founders intended for this country to be a Christian nation, they could have explicitly called for it. They could have removed that clause in Article VI, or have never included it.